An electricity outage crippled the traveler-crammed heart of Manhattan just as Saturday night Broadway shows had been set to move on, sending theater-goers spilling into siren-stuffed streets, knocking out Times Square’s towering electronic monitors, and bringing subway lines to a close to halt.
Electricity turned into restored to customers and organizations in midtown Manhattan and the Upper West Side by using approximately midnight.
Con Edison CEO John McAvoy said a hassle at a substation brought on the energy failure at 6:47 p.M., affecting 73,000 customers for greater than three hours alongside a 30-block stretch from Times Square to 72nd Street and Broadway and spreading to Rockefeller Center.
McAvoy stated the exact reason for the blackout might not be recognized till research is finished.
The temperature changed into in the low 80s as the solar set, however no longer as steaming as Manhattan can get in July, difficult the city’s energy grid.
Power went out early Saturday night time at an awful lot of Rockefeller Center, accomplishing the Upper West Side and knocking out visitors’ lights.
A massive cheer went up amongst Upper West Side citizens whilst strength flickered back on at about 10:30 p.M. For hours before that, doormen stood with flashlights in the darkened entrances of upscale condo homes along Central Park West, directing residents to walk up flights of stairs to their apartments, with all elevators out.
Police directed visitors at intersections as pedestrians and motorcycles weaved through the darkish.
The outage comes at the anniversary of the 1977 New York City outage that left a maximum of the city without power.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a declaration that even though no injuries had been reported, “the reality that it occurred in any respect is unacceptable.” He stated the country Department of Public Service would check out.
He said the outage poses a safety hazard.
“You simply can’t have a strength outage of this magnitude in this city,” Cuomo stated. “It is just too risky; the potential for public protection threat and chaos is simply too high, we just cannot have a device that does that; it’s that simple on the end of the day.”
Most Broadway musicals and plays canceled their Saturday evening indicates, consisting of “Hadestown,” which remaining month received the Tony Award for the high-quality musical. Several forged participants from the musical “Come From Away” held an impromptu performance on the road outside the theater for disappointed target audience individuals.
Emily Totero, 30, deliberate in delivering out-of-metropolis visitors to peer “Moulin Rouge.” But after they got to the theater district, they saw the energy exit.
“You ought to see all the theater lighting across the street, and all the marquees went out. That’s what we observed first,” she said.
The outage also hit Madison Square Garden, wherein Jennifer Lopez was appearing Saturday night time. Attendees stated the live performance went darkish approximately nine:30 p.M. In the middle of Lopez’s fourth music of the nighttime. The arena turned into later evacuated. And at Penn Station, officials had been the use of backup turbines to maintain the lighting fixtures.
Both Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts have been evacuated.
When the lighting fixtures went out early Saturday evening, thousands of humans streamed out of darkened Manhattan homes, crowding Broadway next to bumper-to-bumper traffic amid emergency automobile sirens and honking vehicle horns.
People in the community, usually known as Hell’s Kitchen, commenced directing traffic themselves as stoplights and on foot signs, and symptoms went dark.
Ginger Tidwell, a dance instructor, and Upper West Side resident became approximately to order at a West Side diner on Broadway and West 69th Street simply earlier than 7 p.M.
“When the lighting fixtures started flickering and then had been out, we got up and left, strolling up Broadway with all the site visitors lighting out and organizations darkish,” she said.
But when they were given to West 72nd Street, they located another diner that became open and had electricity.
“It changed into nevertheless sunny, and each person simply came out to the street due to the fact they lost electricity and air conditioning; it became wonderful-crowded,” she said. “Everyone changed into placing out on the street on a nice night time. All you could pay attention was firetrucks up and down Broadway. All of Broadway was without visitors lights.”
